On the Other Hand ...

I wrote earlier today disapproving of David Chen's actions and how I'm reluctantly approving of his prosecution under the law. I sympathize with the gentleman, but the larger ramifications of what he did can't be easily ignored. I think that Mr. Chen and his supporters are unintentionally seeking to set a precedent that are going to get a lot of people hurt or killed over nothing.

Having said that, I still distrust the overwhelming power of the government over that of most individual criminal defendants. If the law itself can't deal with the law in a timely fashion, then I have little other choice but to side with the defendant.

But that's what's starting to happen.

David Chen, the vigilante green-grocer from Chinatown, showed up at Old City Hall this morning for his court appearance, but it was not his first stop of the day. Mr. Chen, as usual, got up at 4 a.m. and drove his truck to the Ontario Food Terminal to pick up produce for the Lucky Moose Food Mart, his Dundas Street West store.

Mr. Chen then came to court, with his co-accused, Qing P. Li, his brother-in-law, and Jie Chen, a store employee who is not related to David Chen. All three were arrested in May, 2009 and charged with assault and forcible confinement, after they detained and tied up a man who was shoplifting plants from the store.


The accused were ready, but the Crown Attorney, who has had 17 months to prepare this case for trial, (and who apparently did not get up at 4 a.m. today) stood up and told the judge, in courtroom 121: “We are having some technical difficulties. The video tape from the store’s cameras uses a proprietary software that cannot be played on the computers here. So we need half an hour to sort this out.” The judge rolled his eyes and recessed the court until 11:15 a.m. today.

Annnd ... that's horseshit! The Crown is lying out of it's slithering asshole. Seventeen months is more than adequate time to figure out software compatibility issues.

What the government wants is to avoid prosecuting David Chen entirely, and they're coming up with the perfect scenario by which to do it. That would be a speedy trial right violation under the Charter. Those assholes are going force the court to dismiss rather than present their fucking case, thereby dragging everyone - including Mr. Chen - through a very expensive mess that will have no conclusion, whatsoever.

And if that's the case, they should just dismiss the case and declare the city of Toronto the O.K Corral.

Assholes.